FIVE THINGS TO WATCH

By now we’ve all heard both teams are 10-0 this sea­son when win­ning the turnover bat­tle. What we don’t know is which one will screw up the most on Sun­day, in con­di­tions that gen­er­ally pro­mote give­aways. Both de­fences are turnover-pro­duc­ing ma­chines.

2 AN­DREW HAR­RIS

This will be fas­ci­nat­ing to watch. Cold con­di­tions sug­gest the Bombers will turn to their league-lead­ing ground game. But if the Rid­ers are in­tent on shut­ting it down, does Winnipeg ask quar­ter­back Matt Ni­chols to let it fly? The bet­ting is the Bombers stick with Har­ris.

3 ZACH COL­LAROS

Equally in­trigu­ing is the health sta­tus of the Rid­ers No. 1 quar­ter­back. Coach Chris Jones has been coy about his starter all week, but the Bombers are con­vinced it’s been noth­ing but games­man­ship. If Col­laros plays, how vul­ner­a­ble is he to an­other head in­jury? Is he even 100%? Or do we see backup Bran­don Bridge?

4 THIRD AND SHORT

The Bombers have a not-so-se­cret weapon off the bench for short yardage sit­u­a­tions. His name is Chris Strev­eler, and he can turn an ex­pected quar­ter­back sneak into a big-play scor­ing strike, like that. As im­por­tant as the play of starter Matt Ni­chols is, Strev­eler’s sneaky arm and young legs could be the dif­fer­ence.

5 WEATHER WATCH

Which team has more play­ers hud­dling by the side­line heaters, try­ing to com­bat the frigid tem­per­a­ture and wind chill fac­tor? That could well de­ter­mine who is ad­just­ing bet­ter to a day bet­ter suited for snow­shoe­ing than foot­ball. Ei­ther that, or it’ll just show us who’s smarter and not sim­ply pre­tend­ing to be tough.

Bombers O-line­man Jer­mar­cus Hardrick (51) will try to keep Wil­lie Jef­fer­son of the Rid­ers (far left) out of the Winnipeg back­field.